A couple of really funny things have happened in the last several days. The first one involved two totaled police units. I was notifying a friend at the DPD about the incident in case she knew the officers involved, one of whom was inured. Finally--I heard a name. It sounded like "Dewlines" and he was being treated, shortly to be released, at Duke ER.

"Oh," she e-mailed back, "that must be 2Lions. He's not had a good week. A few days ago he was attacked by three dogs, had to draw his weapon and shoot at them. He didn't hit any of them, thank goodness, but he inflicted serious inury on a nearby suitcase."

Back I went: "You're making this up, aren't you? 2LIONS??? WOUNDED SUITCASE???"

"Nope," she said, "he changed his name legally to 2Lions and, let me tell you, his wife isn't too pleased about being called Mrs. 2Lions."

About that time, as I was having a serious fit of the giggles, an ID tech (who is notorious for not being able to find any location in the city of Durham) called incident command on the radio to say she had ended up on the other side of the interstate and could she just park there and walk across the meridian? Well, I thought I was going to lose it completely--meridian?

"Good God!" I e-mailed the friend, "ID-(blank) has landed at the date line in bloody Greenwich!" There was no reply for quite some time and she finally e-mailed me back to say every time she tried to type a reply, she would burst out laughing again and just couldn't.

The next funny thing happened yesterday. A woman called DPD to report a burglary of her house. While she was waiting for the police to arrive, she used the john. The toilet was stopped up, so she plunged it. Up floated an ID. Seems the burglar had used the john and his ID had dropped out of his pocket and got flushed into the S-bend.

The really funny bit? She knew the guy.

Oh, and there were these two guys who tried to rob a bank yesterday. The bank tellers didn't take them seriously and refused to hand over any money. As they were leaving, a woman was coming in and they snatched her purse. Normally, a purse-snatching is rated as a misdemeanor but, silly things, they had performed the deed inside the bank. That makes it a federal offense. The bank door is always on camera so the FBI has nice, clear shots of the perps.

It doesn't end there. The would-be robbers took off and were spotted here and there for several miles* until they doubled back and abandoned their (stolen) car about two blocks from the bank--practically at the front door of a Super-8 motel. Guess where the greatest concentration of cops in the city was at that particular time? And guess where the idiots were staying?

(*City police chase rules prohibit chases unless a major felony has occurred.)

Yeah, I have a lousy job but someone has to do it.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

Answers

OG,

Have you heard the (true) story of the fellow in the early 70's that robbed one of those banks near 5 points?

Seems the DPD was in hot persuit down by the RR tracks . The bad guy decided to make his getaway on foot near the old warehouses. I heard from a reliable source that there are still 23 or more bullet holes in those warehouses, and nary a scratch on the perp.

Ahhh, the smell of tobacco on a hot summer evening, I'll never forget Durham...

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

No, haven't heard that one! We've only been here since 1992 and my friend since about 1980.

The Durham PD is now quite good, generally speaking. The educational level is higher than the nationwide average and the police chief is a real professional, not a political hire. I do wish local law enforcement had paid attention to the gangs problem a little earlier, though.

There is no more tobacco smell in Durham. Ligget and Myers moved their operation to Mebane, I believe, earlier this year; others have moved abroad. Many of the handsome brick tobacco warehouses have been turned into shops, apartments and condos and more will no doubt follow.

Durham has changed a lot in the nine years since we moved here and all of it mostly good. I bemoan the gouging of woodland to throw up thousands more of those dreadful plastic houses and expand the highway system but to help balance that is the renovation of old buildings. It's not a bad place to live; we certainly have lived in worse places.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001